From the book
Alcibiades I
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThis is a relational description, not the name of a special class of substances.
- In Alcibiades IThe distinction is prepared by shoes belonging to feet, rings to fingers, and clothing to bodies.
- In this editionThe edition's expanded “what belongs to what is one's own” is less elegant than a single noun but keeps the nested genitives visible.
- A place to readShoes, rings, and clothing supply nested relations of belonging.
Meaning
This is a relational description, not the name of a special class of substances. The things belonging to what is one's own are one stage farther from the self: if body belongs to the person, objects that serve the body belong to what is already his own. “Farther off” makes that order vivid. It does not specify physical distance or a measurable degree of unreality.
Use in the book
The distinction is prepared by shoes belonging to feet, rings to fingers, and clothing to bodies. Once soul is identified as the person, it becomes possible to order soul, body, and bodily equipment as three levels. At 131a–b the craftsman's knowledge reaches the equipment used to tend the body; medical and gymnastic knowledge concern the body itself. The money-maker's activity is then described as tending things still farther off than one's own. The point is one of priority: success in accumulating or maintaining an auxiliary good does not establish improvement of the self.
At 133d–e the complete triad is named: oneself, one's own, and what belongs to one's own. This occurs in the very passage that retracts the earlier concession that specialists could know the lower levels without knowing themselves. The relations are not removed; they must be understood together by one knower and one craft. A simple chart of three independent bodies of knowledge would therefore misrepresent the final position.
“Possessions of possessions” is a compact English heading only. The Greek can encompass instruments, bodily equipment, and relevant goods without asserting a legal ownership claim about every item. Its function is to prevent the most indirect concern, such as money-making, from being mistaken for the care of the person whose good it should ultimately serve.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The edition's expanded “what belongs to what is one's own” is less elegant than a single noun but keeps the nested genitives visible. “The money-maker knows possessions of possessions” is not the wording of 131c: that passage describes what he tends; the knowledge claim about craftsmen occurs earlier.
πορρωτέρω
Attested: πορρωτέρω τῶν ἑαυτῶν (porrōterō tōn heautōn; 131a). At 131a: Farther from the self than its immediate belongings: the equipment by which craftsmen tend the body. Lexical identification: lemma: πορρωτέρω. See Possessions of possessions.
τὰ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ
Attested: τὰ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ (ta tōn heautou; 133e). At 133e: The third level in the series self, own things, and what belongs to those things, assigned to one comprehensive discernment. Lexical identification: phrase label: τὰ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ. See Possessions of possessions.